Imagine the frustration of entering a store with no clear signage, disorganized shelves, and no staff to guide you. How long would you stay? The same applies to website navigation.
Anyone who is involved in sales must also be aware of the importance of marketing. It is not so easy to be noticed in the maze of similar online advertisements, so you need to take appropriate action in order to reach people who might be interested in what your company offers.
Marketing is a very dynamic field. There is always something new to work on, so marketing specialists have to deal with many challenges. We would like to show you the most important marketing issues and marketing problems faced by companies these days. Below you will see solutions to the most popular marketing issues examples.
Table of Contents
- Standing out from the competition
- Calculating return on investment (ROI) in marketing activities
- Acquiring more financial resources for marketing activities
- Taking care of your business website
- Keeping up with the dynamic trends in marketing
- Outsourcing digital marketing campaign to agency
- Acquiring new subscribers
- Conducting marketing activities on the foreign markets
- Adapting the marketing strategy to the changing reality
- Create a good affiliate program for your brand
1. Standing out from the competition
Entrepreneurs from every industry need to bear in mind that their competitors want to boost their sales as well. In some cases those rivalries might be really fierce. New companies are constantly emerging, and as a result, standing out from the competition is one of the bigger issues in the marketing industry.
The consumers are often flooded with a huge number of advertisements as more companies rely on online marketing. This makes it difficult for firms to be noticeable and attractive to the audience.
Solution
What can help here is a decent rebranding. Strong identification elements increase brand recognition, which helps in attracting more customers. It is worth relying on the services of professionals who will help you refresh your brand properly, as you might need to change the name, logo, advertising slogans or website.
You should also consider creating and introducing a new product to the market that will appeal to people and distinguish the company from the competition.
2. Calculating return on investment (ROI) in marketing activities
Measuring your return on investment, the so-called ROI, is still one of the critical issues in a marketing plan. It continues to be a very important measurement of the effectiveness of a marketing campaign or specific content. People that are responsible for making decisions in companies can also rely on ROI when they need to determine whether it is worth investing in a project proposed by an employee.
In addition, proven effectiveness of a given campaign can justify a decision to increase its budget – which would be impossible if the company did not track the ROI. This metric is a key statistic for establishing the campaign’s success, but keeping track of it is not always that simple. If there is no two-way communication between the marketing activity and the sales reports, it is difficult to track the ROI.
Solution to resolving issues with ROI measurement
In the first place, you need to use effective analytical tools that measure ROI. To calculate the Return On Investment, subtract the total cost from the marketing revenue and divide the result by the total cost. This way you can find out how profitable your marketing efforts have been.
3. Acquiring more financial resources for marketing activities
It is hard to create a good, successful marketing campaign without a budget. Even when you are an employee of the company with a great idea that generates income, you still need to get budget approval from the management team. Obtaining a larger budget is one of the main problems marketers face.
Nowadays, there is a noticeable increase in budgets for marketing campaigns. It is a consequence of the rising importance of marketing, online content and digital media that has been proven during the pandemic era. This is great news for marketers, but it also brings new challenges that they may not have encountered before.
Solutions for resolving the marketing issue of low budget
There is only one key that can unlock the budget – you need to prove the return on investment from the marketing efforts. The money resources have to be used for the established needs that make both you and your marketing campaign more efficient. Successful strategies pay off and are a strong argument for increasing the budget.
4. Taking care of your website
The business website is the key place where recipients gather information about the particular firm. It should contain all the necessary data about the business – its offer, products, services, marketing content and other resources that aim at attracting visitors and encouraging them to become customers.
A well made website can also help potential clients find a given company more easily, improve the search results, and build presence on social media if it is continuously optimized and shared.
Site management is one of the serious issues in marketing today, as it requires a lot of work, from building a website content creation strategy and writing, through adding updated content, to designing the right layout as well as guaranteeing the satisfying user experience.
Solution
A bad website can cause considerable problems for the company’s marketing team, especially when it is complex and difficult to manage. Using a website that is slow and does not have a well-functioning CMS, can lead to unnecessary waste of time and money.
A good website supports the marketing team
In contrast, a good website supports the marketing teams because it attracts customers and encourages them to choose products or services offered there.
Managing a business website can be challenging, but it is crucial for firms to effectively sell and connect with customers. To avoid the most common problems in marketing related to business website management you hould ensure that session HTML and persistent HTML are used correctly to enhance the user experience. Remember to keep your website up to date with the latest business and industry innovation to demonstrate your organization’s commitment to progress and growth.
It’s also important to focus on building a strong brand identity, incorporate SEO best practices and optimize website’s loading speed to avoid losing potential customers and negatively impacting sales. You need to continuously monitor analytics to gather insights into user behavior, but also ensure that all visitor session data collected from your website is protected.
It is worth working with a specialized marketing agency that will help you create and manage your website in a professional manner. One of these agencies is Nopio. We offer professional website consulting as well as workshops on website design delivery.
5. Keeping up with the dynamic trends in marketing
Another issue on our list of common marketing problems is related to being up-to-date with changing trends and the lack of a professional development budget – with the latter being essential in order to provide proper training for new employees.
However, further education of experienced team members is also necessary because they still have to become familiar with new marketing trends. Training courses are very expensive and it is often difficult to find a good time for them to take place, especially when the world of marketing is evolving so quickly.
Solutions for overcoming challenges of aligning marketing strategy with the latest trends
At the beginning, it would be useful to understand the concept of training. Many people associate it with classes conducted in a specific place by an employed instructor. Meanwhile, it does not have to be that way.
There is no need to book a place, nor spend much time or money. It is worth conducting such classes online because their organization costs practically nothing. For example, you can prepare educational materials for employees and send them by email. You can also use this method to inform them about new products or services that you plan on providing.
Maximizing growth through internal trainings
Encourage team members to share their own knowledge and insights to foster a culture of continuous learning within the business. To encourage employees to participate in trainings, it is worth creating courses in a different form, for example, organizing quizzes and competitions with some prizes.
Another good practice involves collaboration with the heads of marketing departments who can present their knowledge, projects or strategies during events, meetings or conferences.
Once a year, it will also be beneficial to plan a staff development day in which employees are asked to take part in the selected course and then report on it. There are many ways to ensure that newcomers acquire knowledge, while other employees learn something new.
It’s also a good idea to read digital marketing blogs and publications and follow top industry influencers on social media to gain insights and stay informed about the latest trends. Consider attending free webinars and online training sessions to expand your skill set. By taking these steps, businesses can stay competitive and achieve growth without breaking the bank on expensive training programs.
6. Outsourcing marketing activities
Running a company entails a constant search for ways to provide clients with high-quality products and ideal customer service in order not to lose consumers who are interested in the offer. You have to keep up with everything – including changes taking place in the world economy, on the market, or those implemented by your competition. These are the most crucial current marketing issues.
Companies are trying to adjust to this dynamic situation, but their budgets are shrinking due to the lack of consumer spending. Businesses want to do more with less staff, which is quite a challenge. In other words, lack of resources is another example of issues of marketing management.
Solutions for resolving the problem of lack of resources and talent acquisition
It is worth cooperating with a professional marketing agency that will take care of everything for you. Hiring an agency costs less than hiring an employee with the desired skills – not to mention that finding talented and knowledgeable people is a real challenge in itself. After outsourcing marketing activities to a good agency, you will not have to worry about such things.
In addition, your company will save a lot of time because everything will be done by marketing professionals, while your employees devote their working hours to other matters.
7. Acquiring new subscribers
Mailings and newsletters are basic marketing tools used by companies. However, obtaining the so-called subscribers is a huge challenge. It is not enough to put a subscription form on the website.
You need to find a way to encourage people to fill it out. Keeping those who have already signed up happy is also not an easy task because people tend to unsubscribe from the company’s messages after some time.
Solutions for overcoming marketing challenges related to newsletters
The first thing you should consider when tackling this problem is creating free, interesting materials that you will provide subscribers with in return for entering their email addresses.
However, the recipients must be informed about the rules of the exchange: e.g., in order to receive a free ebook, they have to give their email address and agree to the regular newsletter. When it comes to the content of the messages, it also should be of a good quality to keep the audience interested.
What marketers need to keep in mind when planning a newsletter?
Remember to plan the sending of newsletters sensibly. Do not send it several times a day, or even every day, as people will perceive it as spam and will be very likely to unsubscribe – pushy newsletters are the main reason for opting out. Of course, information about the possibility of resignation must be included in every email, but try using it in such a way that people do not unsubscribe too quickly.
Another thing you should consider is marketing software integration, which can significantly enhance the process of acquiring new subscribers by simplifying and automating multiple tasks.
8. Conducting marketing activities on the foreign markets
Plenty of companies operate internationally and even offer their products or services to clients from all over the world. Global marketing specialists encounter enormous challenges related to acquiring clients from many countries.
Every state has different customs, culture and applicable regulations. When creating marketing strategies, the experts face many obstacles, such as cultural differences, the language barriers and constantly changing exchange rates.
Contemporary issues affecting marketing today involve adapting the website, determining the ways of targeting the audience as well as introducing new products to the preferences of residents in a particular country.
Solutions for resolving the common issues of global marketing
Visitors to the company’s website can speak different languages and come from a variety of time zones. So you have to prepare a version of the website in a few languages and take into account marketing communication issues with audiences from all over the world.
Every website should have an English version. This language is known in almost every country and is the mother tongue in many parts of the world – not only in Great Britain, but also in the USA, Canada and Australia. It will be necessary to hire good translators, preferably native speakers, and provide them with the right tools. It is also crucial to tailor the content to specific audiences.
9. Adapting the marketing strategy to the changing reality
Acquiring traffic and new customers are the two most important digital marketing strategy issues that are becoming even more difficult to solve due to the current changes. The recent regulations force modifications in the sphere of privacy, identity, cookies and the processing of personal data. These novelties are also influenced by the pandemic, which has forced changes in the manner and place of conducting work, as well as numerous adjustments in the global economy.
Marketing specialists had to acquire new ways to rethink their strategy. What is more, many opportunities offered by content publishing platforms as well as the multitude of ways to promote them can cause a lot of dilemmas. It becomes more difficult to establish what to focus your efforts on in order to elicit demand for content or offers. Therefore, determining the type of content and the way it should be communicated are the biggest challenges in marketing today.
Solution: addressing difficulties with a solid marketing plan
To acquire traffic and new customers for a website in a fast-changing marketing reality, it’s important to have a solid marketing plan. Understanding your user and customer base is key, and utilizing channels like Google and YouTube can drive big traffic and revenue. Adapting your marketing strategy as needed is also important – focusing on SEO and optimizing for top search queries can help maintain visibility.
It is essential to have a deep understanding of the marketplace and your target audience. You should focus on providing a solution to their needs and pain points rather than just promoting your product or service.
Foremost, be vigilant when it comes to monitoring and understanding all the changes in privacy issues and updating search engines or social platforms. Do not forget about content marketing. At the beginning, you need to judge whether your content is of good quality and if it is something that recipients really want – use text, infographics, videos or a podcast to communicate with your target audience.
Building a talented team that can navigate changes in the market is crucial to success. Keeping a big picture view of your product and revenue goals while staying nimble in the face of shifting trends is key for success year after year.
Evolving your content marketing and social media for a dynamic landscape
Nowadays, hardly anyone likes to read long texts. People prefer videos or podcasts, but you should make your decision based on the type of information you want to convey. To make sure you are creating good content, track your statistics and analyze them on a regular basis. Remember to select appropriate promotion methods, also adapted to mobile devices. In addition to social media, mailings and Google, it is worth implementing phone notifications.
10. Create a good affiliate program
Another common issue in digital marketing is ill-considered implementation of the partnership program. Collaboration, as a part of the so-called affiliate programs, is an interesting way to promote a company. It consists in acquiring partners who provide information and links about the firm on their websites or social media accounts. In return, they receive remuneration in the form of commission on purchases made by people who enter the website through an affiliate link.
However, creating a good affiliate program is a big challenge. Why? Because you need to have a separate budget to pay commission to your partners, and what is equally important, find a way to get them to collaborate with you in the first place.
Solution
The affiliate program must be carefully thought out. It has to be encouraging. You need to elicit trust and confidence in the potential collaborators, so they know they will receive their remuneration. Create a clear message, formulate understandable regulations and constantly coordinate the entire process. It is a lot of work, but it often brings many benefits to companies.
It’s also crucial to pay attention to APR and work with reliable networks to ensure your marketing efforts are cost-effective and efficient.
Common marketing problems – summary
A thorough analysis of your marketing strategy and its performance will help you spot your greatest advertising opportunities and focus on solving your company’s key marketing issues. With time, you will know more about these problems and learn how to overcome marketing challenges and create a successful business.
